Boobs: One Woman’s Search For Perfection – Review

19th October 2014

Precious Muir, a model most often hired for work in teen catalogues and magazines, makes the drastic decision to have breast enlargement surgery in the hopes of forwarding her career into the world of glamour modelling, and the cameras are there to see the months following.

The first thing that has to be mentioned is just how well crafted it is. The editing, score and structure are all tight, a shower shoot being a highlight, and the 85 minutes flies by. Despite this there are issues, like the confused talking head segments where we swing from reality TV style links to the (I think) intent of being confessional and insightful.

Despite the title, the film manages to swerve being leery at all, maintaining the objective eye of verite, but unfortunately this is ill fitting of the subject matter.

The premise of following one person’s post-surgery life is interesting, but because of the objective style it becomes a problem. There’s never any sense of getting past the superficial, leaving interrogation at the door in favour of just getting what Precious is happy to show on camera, resulting in her talking about her breasts for 85 minutes, something that didn’t grab my attention.

The film seems unwilling to pick a side on the issue underlying their chosen subject, glamour modelling and female body image in the mainstream media. I think they were aiming for a neutral position, instead it just feels like they didn’t want to have to. I’m not saying they had to be critical or judgemental, but neutrality on a hot topic like this just comes across as apathy, or even worse trying to keep away from the more problematic issues being raised.

Even though documentaries like Super Size Me are didactic, bordering on propaganda, they are engaging because they take a stance and have an opinion, a confrontational one. If you took out all the social commentary of Super Size Me, you’d just be watching a guy eat burgers for an hour and a half. That’s what we have here; Big Macs without the calorie count.

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